Charlie Team
by Terry Gibbs
Summary: Charlie Team was formed under most unusual circumstances. This is their story.
1. Chapter 1

Charlie Team- Chp

Charlie Team- Chp. 1

It was 0215 and the Bellow Woods subdivision of Fort Griffith had been silent for some time. Except…there was quiet activity in three houses. Eighteen year old Marcus Blane, dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a grey t-shirt with ARMY printed on the front of it, wondered for the thousandth time if he was doing the right thing. He looked at the letter on his desk one last time and turned the lamp off. He stood in his dark childhood bedroom and wondered what the morning would bring. Whatever it was, Marcus didn't plan on being around to find out.

He walked out the front door and the street was quiet, except for two other men his own age standing on the street. Jack Gearhardt and Sam Brown were Marcus' oldest friends in the world. Though he'd only known Sam for two years, the two were bonded by their father's shared occupation. Jack and Marcus, though, had grown up together. Mac and Tiffy had been Uncle and Aunt to Marcus since he was knee high to a grasshopper.

Marcus smiled at the memories this neighborhood evoked and knew the next time he saw it, it would be in Army Greens.

" 'Sup, homes?" He asked.

" nothin' much. Kick the tires and light the fires." Jack said.

Sam and Marcus laughed at the old saying. "Let's go before our mother's wake up and have conniptions. I don't think the street would survive three nuclear blasts at once." Marcus said. He companions attempted to stifle their laughter.


	2. The First Day of the rest of your life

The First Day of the Rest of your Life

The First Day of the Rest of your Life

"ALRIGHT, MAGGOTS, LISTEN UP!" The DI screamed.

Marcus, Jack and Sam were standing with 200 or so other eighteen to twenty-one year olds. There heads were shaved and they were dressed in brand new basic camouflage and combat boots. They hadn't been issued weapons yet, but figured that would come soon enough. Suddenly, their thoughts were loudly and violently interrupted by DIs screaming at them to get outside and hit the dirt. It was raining cats and dogs and, as they cranked out pushes up to screams of DIs, each man wondered if they done the right thing.

000

Molly Blane, Tiffany Gerhardt and Kim Brown weren't woman you wanted to be on the bad side of. There husbands knew this. The Unit's commander, Colonel Thomas Ryan, knew. But, apparently, their son's did not. The three couples were sitting in the Blane's living room. The women had awakened to find letters from each of their son's stating that they had enlisted, shipped out for basic training and would be incommunicado for the next three to five months. This wasn't entirely true, as the army would have allowed the boys to call home, but each of them knew their mother's needed time to actually miss them before they could call without getting yelled at.

"So, let me get this strait, you knew about this and did _NOTHING _to stop it?" Kim asked, giving the three unit men a stare that would surely have killed mere mortals.

"Yep, that about sums it up, Ma'am." Mac said, smiling with pride. Tiffy just glared at him.

"What would you have us do? Stop them? This is the proudest day of my life, next to the day I married my wife, joined the army and the days my children were born." Jonas said. His subordinate's were nodding in agreement.

Molly sighed. "Its not that we're not proud of any of you. But wife of a soldier and mother to a kid who just joined are two different things."

"I agree. They didn't join just because they wanted to serve their country. Our sons joined because they grew up hearing stories about what you do and they wanted to that." Tiffy said.

The room was silent for a long minute when, as if to prove the woman's point, the men's unit issue cell phones began to ring.

000

Author's Note: Some lines are similar and/or the same to lines from the season three episode "Every Step You Take."


	3. Selection

Chp

Chp. 3

Marcus didn't know whether to shout for joy or drop to his knees and pray. He'd just received orders to report to Fort Griffith for unit selection. The reason he, Jack and Sam had joined the army had come to pass. He pulled out his phone and dialed Jacks number; it rang twice.

"Gerhardt."

"Did you get one?"

On the only end of the phone, Jack grinned. "Yeah, and our mutual friend did too."

"All right! Meet at Shirley's, 1900?"

"I'll be there."

000

"So, did you hear from Marcus?" Bob asked.

"No, and I don't think I will. Why, did Sam call?"

Jonas, Mac and Bob were drinking in the team bay and discussing the next unit selection, scheduled to start the following week. Their son's names were on the roster.

"No. Kim's worried though; apparently she found out through the grapevine that the next selection cycle is being conducted next week. How's Molly taking it?"

"She asks indifferent, but I see right through it. She worried, but she knows he's strong." Jonas said, taking a swig of his beer.

Mac scoffed. "You know Tiffy actually asked me to go talk to the colonel about barring them from selection."

Bob's eyebrows shot up. "And what'd you tell her?"

"Asked her if she had a death wish."

"Some how I think this course gives new meaning to the phrase BOHICA." Jonas said.

Mac's grin widened. "It does indeed."

000

Kim Brown had been ignoring her husband for the last week. Though it wasn't advertised when Unit selection was held, she knew how the process worked. She also knew joining the Unit was the reason Sam had joined the army. She grown more apprehensive each year as her son's twenty-second birthday drew closer. When it had finally come, she hadn't celebrated, because she knew what it meant. Fortunately, when she asked Bob about the upcoming selection course, he told her the truth and said that Sam's name was on the roster. As she lay in bed, listening to the sounds of her silent house and her three younger children sleeping, she prayed that something, anything, short of death itself, would bar her eldest son for ever surviving in the unit.

000

Tiffany Gerhardt stood before a class of third graders, lecturing on the French and Indian war, when the familiar olive drab bus passed her class room window. She stopped talking and watched it pass, trying to make out hair color or some sign that Jack was or wasn't on the bus. She saw one red head just before the bus passed out of sight and she turned away, swallowed the lump in her throat and resumed her lecture.

000

Molly Blane sipped her coffee slowly, forcing herself to taste it and concentrate on anything other than the fact that today was the day she had fear since her son had come into this world. She heard footsteps coming toward the kitchen waited for her husband to enter. Jonas walked into the kitchen and went to her. She gave him a look that would and did send most men running for cover.

"You keep them safe."

He smiled and hugged her. "Will do, baby, will do."

000

Marcus' legs felt like blocks of cement. He wanted to drop right where he was and give up. A forty pound rucksack wasn't all that bad, even after as little as six hours sleep and one MRE. But after no sleep and no breakfast well…

"Marcus…I can't…I can't…" Sam tried to speak, but couldn't. Though it was against the rules to work together, Marcus, Jack and Sam had made a pact to work together and get through selection together or not at all. If one voluntarily withdrew, the other two would as well. Marcus dropped back and looked at his friend.

"Sgt. Brown, do you want this?" Marcus asked, looking into his friend's eyes. Jack watched and waited.

"Ye…yes."

"Then stay the course. We'll help you. Ain't that right, Sergeant Gerhardt?"

"Darn right." Jack said, put his arm around Sam's shoulders. "Lean on me, brother."

Sam scowled. "Colonel Ryan," He wheezed. "…Said don't…"

Marcus shook his head. "You let me worry about the colonel."

From the next checkpoint 300 yards away, Jonas smiled at what he saw through his binoculars.

"You know that an automatic out, for all of them." Brown said.

Jonas smiled. "You may remember, Sgt. Brown, that you did something similar and you made it."

Bob nodded, remembering. "I hope you're right."

000

Three weeks passed. More miles, more drills. Now, Marcus, Jack and Sam faced the review board. Marcus was currently being question.

"You mean to tell me that you disobeyed a direct order just so your friend could finish the course?" Col. Tom Ryan asked, clearly not amused.

Marcus nodded. "Yes, Sir. My friend's and I joined the army solely to attend unit selection. Either we all passed or we all failed."

Ryan scowled. "Well, Sgt. Brown failed. What you say to that?"

Marcus said nothing, but turned and left the room.

000

Two days later, Jonas, Mac, Bob, Hector and Charlie, along with the colonel met to vote on who would graduate selection and who wouldn't. After the votes were tallied, Ryan compiled a list and gave a copy to three of the men.

000

Marcus was sitting at his parent's kitchen table, drinking coffee with Sam and Jack when their father's walked in. The three men's faces were impossible to read. They stared at their son's in silence. Finally, Marcus couldn't stand it.

"So, what's the word? Did we pass or what?"

Jonas looked at Mac. "Do you have a list of who we were supposed to notify?"

Mac nodded and pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. "200 hundred men participated in unit selection; twenty passed, including but not limited, Sgts. Marcus Blane, Jackson Gerhardt and Samuel Brown." Mac announced and smiled.

Silence followed until reality sunk in. Then the boys jumped up and hugged and backslapped. They weren't just soldiers anymore. They were Unit members.


	4. Go for Blane

Chp. 4

Marcus slept soundly, but not deeply. He'd learned to balance the two in his time with the Unit. Sleep when you can, eat when you can was what the army had taught him. Suddenly, the cell phone on the nightstand vibrated.

Without opening eyes, Marcus reached for it and sat up. Then he subconsciously used a phrase he'd heard his father use more times than he could remember.

"Go for Blane."

The End

Author's note: I was kind of bored with this fic. I've got several in the works right now, but I didn't want to leave this one hanging. I might do a sequel.


End file.
